The Howard University student leaders who organized Friday's protest have refused an offer to meet on Tuesday, Sept. 8 with President Sidney A. Ribeau.
According to Howard University Student Association (HUSA) President Bryan Smart, the reason for the cancellation was transparency. He said meetings no longer need to take place in the confines of the boardroom, but a public dialogue needs to take place.
In his opinion, an open dialogue will promote consistency of promises and accountability.
Until Ribeau addresses the issues, student leaders will not be meeting and will continue to wait.
Also left waiting was Ribeau, Interim Provost and Chief Academic Officer Alvin Thornton and three other administrators who expected to meet with the students on Tuesday.
According to Ribeau, they arrived at the Board of Trustees boardroom, where the meeting was to be held in the administration building, at 11:30 a.m. as negotiated the day of the protest, but no one came.
"I got no notification that it was cancelled," Ribeau said. "They just didn't show up. We were sitting here waiting."
According to Associate Provost Barbara Griffin, the meeting was to be held to address the concerns of the students since Ribeau was not in town the day of the protest. On Friday, Sept. 4, she said the president was open to the students' concerns and that HUSA did request the meeting.
HUSA Vice President Jerome Joseph said an e-mail was sent to Ribeau about the cancellation of the meeting. Along with that e-mail, student leaders have asked students to e-mail Ribeau, beginning Saturday, Sept. 5, about issues they were having at the university.
Smart said phone calls were made to no avail.
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13 comments
If HUSA ensists on an open forum the president can easily counter with restricting who can attend this "public forum, as well as time and location of the said public forum. What they wont allow this to turn into is a public spectacle with raging emotions without the benefit of any intellect, that would be counterproductive. It is very difficult to dialogue when you have people being rude, with sneers and jeers in the audience.
In short HUSA dropped the ball on this one and should have kept the meeting as scheduled. If deemed necessary followed up with a "town hall" style meeting with just the students to discuss what was said in the meeting, then asked for the president to attend to a future meeting.
As I said earlier you have to crawl before you walk !
Stop making excuses for their lack of maturity. Seems to me they want the liberty to act and speak as "grown folk" but when necessary resort back to sophomoric type behavior. In standing up the President they have all but exclaimed things are fine as is so the status quo will work. Credibility is all but gone.
Now these kids want to dictate the terms on which to discuss the changes they want to see made. Unreal.
Lack of maturity at play. You have to crawl before you walk.